Skip to footer

Readers write: Feeding the world, more than biotechnology

Letters to the editor for the Sept. 5, 2016 weekly magazine.

|
John Miller/AP
A genetically engineered potato pokes through the soil of a planting pot in a lab in southwestern Idaho.
  • By Steven Brierly Monitor reader
  • Laurel Hopwood Monitor reader

Feeding the world

Regarding the June 27 cover story “The great food fight”: The assumption underlying the Vermont food labeling law is that the public needs to be protected against food “tainted” by genetically modified organisms. Aside from the fact that there is no evidence that GMO foods are harmful, this is shortsighted. By 2050, the world’s population is expected to increase to 9.7 billion and these additional billions must be fed. In a 2009 report, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that crop production would have to increase 70 percent by 2050 to meet this need. Since there is practically no additional arable land available, this can be achieved only through dramatically improved yields. Crops that have been engineered for drought tolerance and efficient use of nutrients are a critical part of this yield enhancement. Consumers in the wealthy part of the world have the luxury of choosing to eat only organic, non-GMO food; the rest of the world does not.

Steven Brierley

Westford, Mass.

More than biotechnology

Regarding the June 30 article “Stop bashing GMOs, say 107 scientists and economists” (CSMonitor.com): The search for a biotech fix for hunger distracts attention from hunger’s underlying causes and from alternative interventions that are more appropriate. Farmers in third-world countries want to breed and grow crop varieties that adapt to their diverse ecosystems. 

Small-scale farmers have evolved systems of seed exchange for future seasons and generations. Genetic engineering of food crops will lock farmers into a system of nonsustainable industrial agriculture, making them dependent on large corporations for seed and other inputs. This will create a fragile food system and will thereby increase food insecurity. How about providing farmers in developing countries with better equipment, grain storage that is rodentproof, and money to purchase seeds that maintain their traditional agricultural systems?

Laurel Hopwood

Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Team chair

Cleveland

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Readers write: Feeding the world, more than biotechnology
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Readers-Respond/2016/0903/Readers-write-Feeding-the-world-more-than-biotechnology
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe